KHRUSHCHEV SOCIETY Flashcards
STALIN 1941-53
Neither the Fourth nor Fifth Five Year Plans substantially improved standards of living for the ordinary Russian people:
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easants were squeezed by the quota system and lived on an income that was less than 20 per cent of an industrial worker.
* In the towns, diets were poor and housing, services and consumer goods were all in short supply.
* The working week remained at its wartime levels with a norm of 12 hours per day.
* In a continuation of the Stakhanovite programme, workers could be relocated to wherever they were needed.
* Women were expected to make up for the war dead (and in the building trade represented a third of all workers).
By 1950, real household consumption was only a tenth higher than in 1928.
Furthermore a 90 per cent devaluation of the rouble in 1947 wiped out savings.
There was some attempt under Malenkov to
give increased priority to clothing. housing and social services from 1953, but much still needed to be done.
KHRUSHCHEV 1953-64
Whatever his motivation, Khrushchev committed himself to improving the living standards of the Soviet people. Through his de-Stalinisation campaigns and economic reforms, he certainly accomplished something of this aim. Consumer goods such as
radios, televisions, sewing machines and refrigerators became more widely available, for example, and small quantities of imported foreign goods also began to enter the shops, although they always sold out very quickly. There were some ambitious new housing initiatives too, including the construction of prefabricated flats to alleviate overcrowding.
KHRUSHCHEV 1953-64
increase in
Cars
Refrigerators
Washing machines
Televisions
1955 to 64
in thousands
Cars 2 to 5
Refrigerators 4 to 40
Washing machines 1 to 77
Televisions 4 to 82
KHRUSHCHEV 1953-64
Taxation changes also helped. In 1958, compulsory voluntary subscriptions to the State were abolished, and both the
bachelors’ tax and that on childless couples were removed. Pension arrangements were improved and even peasants became eligible for a state pension.
KHRUSHCHEV 1953-64
Hours of work were reduced with the introduction of the 40-hour working week, and a wage equalisation campaign saw an increase in the wages of the lowest paid. This helped along the path towards greater
social equality and the wage differentials between the highest and lowest paid in the USSR were indeed lower than those in any other highly industrialised country.
Factory trade unions were also given more responsibilities, and this enabled them to take a more active role in employment negotiations.
KHRUSHCHEV 1953-64
Better and more widely available education, continued improvement in medicine and welfare services and technological improvements which brought better transport also made the workers’ lot a happier one.
However, privileges still remained in the form of non-wage payments,
access to scarce commodities, health care and holidays for those at the higher level of the political hierarchy.
These undermined any claim that Khrushchev’s USSR was an equal society. Although cars became more common in the early 1960s, for example, they were generally beyond the reach of ordinary citizens and reserved for Party officials. Furthermore, although living standards were better than in earlier years, they were significantly lower than in most industrialised states, while the quality of consumer goods was poor.
QUALITY OF LIFE AND CULTURAL CHANGE UNDER STALIN, 1945-53
The post-war years had seen the grim ‘Zhdanovshchina during which censorship had grown tighter, the ethnic minorities had suffered, and freedom of cultural expression was non-existent. Despite the adulation he received, Stalin’s
paranoia had cast a grim shadow over social life breeding an atmosphere of fear and secrecy.
SOCIAL LIFE AND CULTURAL CHANGE UNDER KHRUSHCHEV, 1953-64
De-Stalinisation was accompanied by a ‘thaw, which brought a greater personal freedom for Soviet citizens.
Restrictions on the
reading of foreign literature, on listening to foreign radio broadcasts and, to some extent, on what could be written or said, were lifted. A limited number of citizens were allowed to travel abroad. Cultural and sports tours were arranged and televisions showed international performances by companies such as the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballet and the Moscow state circus, as well as by sports teams such as the Moscow Dynamos football team.
SOCIAL LIFE AND CULTURAL CHANGE UNDER KHRUSHCHEV, 1953-64
Khrushchev also realised the economic potential of international tourism, and established
‘Intourist’ through which foreigners could visit the USSR and witness Soviet achievements at first hand. For ordinary citizens, and particularly for young people, seeing Westerners at close range was a transformative experience which opened new horizons.
SOCIAL LIFE AND CULTURAL CHANGE UNDER KHRUSHCHEV, 1953-64
Greater contact with Western culture - either directly (for example at the World Festival of Youth, staged in Moscow in 1957, and attended by 34,000 people from 131 different countries) - or through radio and television broadcasts brought a new source of discontent with the rigidity of Soviet life.
Young people
saw the dress, music and behaviour of Westerners as exciting and modern.
SOCIAL LIFE AND CULTURAL CHANGE UNDER KHRUSHCHEV, 1953-64
Changes in youth attitudes brought more incidents of petty vandalism and hooliganism, while in the universities there were incidents of students boycotting lectures of the communist dining rooms in protest against controls. According to a survey carried out by Soviet authorities in 1961, the majority of young people were
cynical about the ideals of the October Revolution and were more motivated by material ambitions. Since 55% of the population was under 30 years of age, this Was a serious threat to the system.
CHANGES IN ELITIST CULTURE
Khrushchev tried to reinforce the distance travelled since the harsh Stalinist era and rehabilitated some of those persecuted in the Zhdanovshchina:
The composer Shostakovich, for example, and the writers Akhmatova, Bebel, were permitted to work again.
CHANGES IN ELITIST CULTURE
Solzhenitsyn is an example of a writer who thrived on the new freedom. He was released from labour camp and allowed to publish
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1962, in which he described conditions in the gulag. it highly critical of Stalinist times, achieved impressive sales; the latter sold a million copies in six months.
CHANGES IN ELITIST CULTURE
However, artists and writers did not enjoy complete freedom. Khrushchev’s own tastes were conservative. He disliked ‘modernism’ in literature and art and was quite outspoken and critical after a visit to a
Moscow art gallery displaying modernist works in 1962.
Nevertheless, ‘culture was not judged solely by his personal taste. Artistic endeavour was, as it always had been, measured by its commitment to ‘social responsibility’.
